Home

Game of Thrones now contributes £30m a year to the Northern Irish economy, but, thanks to the work of Northern Ireland Screen, the creative industries’ growth in the region goes way beyond just one TV show. Creative Review's Eliza Williams talk to CEO Richard Williams about attracting creative talent and [...]

Economy Minister Simon Hamilton MLA has announced US business aPriori Technologies is establishing a 15 strong technology team in Belfast to support its growth. Headquartered in Concord Massachusetts, the company offers major manufacturers software solutions which provide real-time insight into the manufacturability and cost of the products they develop. Its [...]

Film production is taking a starring role on both sides of the border, bringing with it investment in infrastructure and a demand for skilled finance professionals. These are heady days for the Irish film industry. Brooklyn, partly filmed in Ireland and based on the novel by Colm Tóibín, was nominated [...]

Christine Boyle of solar company Senergy Innovations and Dr Rachel Gawley of healthcare apps company AppAttic were among 15 winners in Innovate UK's ‘infocus’ competition for Women in Innovation, announced at an award ceremony held at London’s Royal Society of Arts. The winners come from a variety of sectors including health, nuclear energy, transport [...]

Last month MATRIX panellist Dr. Robert Grundy attended the NHS Health and Care Innovation Expo 2016 in order to understand drivers of innovation in the English NHS and learn more about different initiatives and approaches to innovation that could be applied to the Life and Health Sciences sector in Northern Ireland. [...]

MATRIX, the Northern Ireland Science Industry Panel, is a business led expert panel, formed primarily to advise government, industry and academia on the commercial exploitation of R&D and science and technology in Northern Ireland.

We produce regular, in depth reports which outline the work, findings and recommendations of our specialist panels. These reports are an invaluable resource for anyone interested in how new technologies and market opportunities can be developed within the Northern Ireland economy and beyond.

STEM

The panel

We have a main panel of twelve business and academic leaders, supported by a small secretariat team based in the Department for the Economy. The panel is chaired by Brian Keating, Managing Partner of CIP Partnership and visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Ulster, while the Deputy Chairs are Norman Apsley, Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Science Park and Dr. Rob Hardeman. Other panel members include Professor Jim McLaughlin OBE, Cathy Gormley-Heenan, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Impact) at Ulster University and Bombardier’s Gavin Campbell.

Current work

MATRIX has a robust programme of work in place, from our main Horizon panel reports to smaller reports and ‘thought pieces’ for government and strategic bodies. We are currently working on two Horizon reports and developing a library of reports that we have produced and others that the panel and secretariat have selected from other bodies.

The 2016 AMME Report

Launched 29th November

Using the Delphi Method

for the first time

in a MATRIX report

Now available

to download

Creative Technology

Matrix is about to embark on a short study into the interface between technology and creativity, following one of the supporting recommendations from the 2016 Digital ICT report.

Game of Thrones now contributes £30m a year to the Northern Irish economy, but, thanks to the work of Northern Ireland Screen, the creative industries’ growth in the region goes way beyond just one TV [...]

Economy Minister Simon Hamilton MLA has announced US business aPriori Technologies is establishing a 15 strong technology team in Belfast to support its growth. Headquartered in Concord Massachusetts, the company offers major manufacturers software solutions [...]

Film production is taking a starring role on both sides of the border, bringing with it investment in infrastructure and a demand for skilled finance professionals. These are heady days for the Irish film industry. [...]

Live SBRIs

The Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) connects public sector challenges with innovative ideas from industry, supporting companies to generate economic growth and enabling improvement in achieving government objectives.

SBRI provides innovative solutions to challenges faced by the public sector and generates new business opportunities for companies, providing SMEs with a route to market for their ideas and bridging the seed funding gap experienced by many early stage companies. It supports economic growth and enables the development of innovative products and services through the public procurement of research and development (R&D).

Organisations can apply for a share of £25 million to develop new vaccines against infectious diseases.

The Department of Health is to invest up to £25 million in projects to develop new vaccines against infectious diseases.

This competition aims to support the preclinical development of candidate vaccines against 12 diseases. The UK Vaccine Network has identified these diseases as a priority as they have the potential to cause epidemics in low and middle-income countries.

The competition has two stages:

Stage 1: exploring the scientific, technical and commercial feasibility of candidate vaccines and vaccine technologies. We expect projects to last for up to 12 months

Stage 2: carrying out late stage preclinical and early clinical work, based on the results of Stage 1. We expect projects to last for up to 24 months

This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition run in partnership with the Department of Health and the Medical Research Council. It is open to organisations of all sizes. Academic, industry and government bodies may all apply for funding.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is to invest up to £5 million in projects to develop innovative manufacturing and materials technologies for the civil nuclear sector.

The aim of this competition is to establish an innovative R&D base for materials and manufacturing. This will support a strong UK nuclear supply chain.

Proposals should address one of the following themes. Allocated budgets are shown in brackets:

nuclear structural materials (£1.5 million)

mechanisation and automation of component manufacture (£1.9 million)

large scale component manufacture and assembly (£1.1 million)

pre-fabricated module development and verification (£200,000)

design codes and standards (£300,000)

This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition run in partnership with Innovate UK. It is open to organisations of all sizes.

The competition consists of 2 stages for themes 1 to 3. For themes 4 and 5, the competition will be single stage and applicants will move directly to stage 2.

stage 1: technical feasibility studies. For themes 1 to 3, these will last up to 3 months. Contracts are worth up to £25,000. For themes 4 and 5, technical feasibility studies will last up to 24 months. Contracts are worth up to £200,000 for theme 4 and £300,000 for theme 5

stage 2: development contracts. These will last up to 20 months. Contracts are worth up to £1.9 million

In total, we have allocated up to £800,000 for stage 1 and up to £4.2 million for stage 2.

Businesses and organisations can apply for a share of £500,000 to develop solutions that will help SMEs manage short-term sickness absence.

The cross-government Work and Health Unit is running a competition to find new ways of supporting small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to manage sickness absence at an early stage.

As well as improving individual wellbeing, we know that addressing sickness absence offers economic benefits for businesses, employees and the state.

We are keen to look at innovative proposals from those who know best what works for SMEs, and will offer businesses with the most promising solutions a government contract to develop their product or service.

Innovate UK is to invest up to £15 million in innovation projects in manufacturing and/or materials. We will fund projects that focus on identified technical or commercial challenges. These should lead to increased productivity, competitiveness and growth for UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

We expect projects to range in size from total costs of £50,000 to £2 million. Projects should last between 6 months and 3 years.

A business must lead the project. Projects must involve at least one SME, working alone or in collaboration with other organisations. Projects longer than 12 months or with costs of £100,000 or more must involve working with other partners.

There are two options to apply into this competition. These are dependent on the size and length of your project and are referred to as streams. Stream 1 is for projects under 12 months and under £100,000. Stream 2 is for projects over 12 months or over £100,000.

The competition opens on 21 November 2016.

You must register before midday (12.00pm) on 18 January 2017. The registration link will be available once the competition opens.

You must apply before midday (12.00pm) on 25 January 2017.

Attend the briefing event in London on 23 November 2016 or via webinar